Prince William Sound, Alaska -
While researchers in Alaska this summer used high-tech submersibles
and huge ships to plumb the deep-ocean depths in search of new
species, a team of scuba diving scientists working from an Alaska
fishing boat has discovered an entirely new marine habitat just
a stone's throw from shore.

The discovery in June of a
single bed of rhodoliths, colorful marine algae that resemble
coral, was made near Knight Island in Prince William Sound by
scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) School
of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (SFOS). Rhodolith beds have been
found throughout the world's oceans, including in the Arctic
near Greenland and in waters off British Columbia, Canada. But
they have never been documented in Alaska waters.

"This is exciting because
it represents a new type of habitat scientists had not identified
before in Alaska," said Brenda
Konar, associate professor of marine biology at SFOS and
staff scientist with the West Coast and Polar Regions Undersea
Research Center at UAF.

Rhodoliths belong to a group
known as coralline red algae that deposit calcium carbonate within
their cell walls to form hard structures that closely resemble
beds of coral. But unlike coral, rhodoliths do not attach themselves
to the rocky seabed. Rather, they drift like tumbleweeds along
the seafloor until they grow heavy enough to settle and form
brightly colored beds. And while corals are animals that filter
plankton and other organisms from the water for food, rhodoliths
produce energy through photosynthesis.

Globally, rhodoliths fill an
important niche in the marine ecosystem, serving as a transition
habitat between rocky areas and barren, sandy areas. Rhodoliths
provide habitat for a wide variety of species, from commercial
species such as clams and scallops to true corals. The discovery
of rhodoliths in Alaska is likely to fuel the debate over the
protection of seafloor habitats.

"Now that we found them,
we want to find more of these beds and learn precisely what their
role in the Alaska marine ecosystem is."

Mike Foster, professor emeritus
at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory in California, has studied
the global distribution of rhodoliths, and is the author of numerous
scientific papers on the subject. He says the discovery of rhodoliths
in Alaska marks an important milestone in scientists' understanding
of coralline algae.

"If these beds are anything
like those elsewhere in the world, they are likely critical habitat
for associated species, and there are probably more new species
in them than just the rhodoliths," said Foster. "Such
discoveries also send an important message about how little we
know about the sea."

The discovery came after Konar
and Katrin
Iken, assistant professor of marine biology with the university's
Institute of Marine Science, accidentally dropped a small strainer,
or sieve, overboard. The scientists had been conducting nearshore
surveys of marine life as part of an international study sponsored
by the Census of Marine Life NaGISA program and funded by the
Gulf Ecosystem Monitoring program.

"A sieve is worth about
$75, so we wanted to get it back," said Konar. "We
descended into about 60 feet of water and found the sieve right
away. But then I noticed these little pink tumbleweeds everywhere.
I thought I was looking at a rhodolith bed, but rhodolith beds
had never been described in Alaska. We were shocked to see how
many there were down there."

Konar said she knew right away
the find was significant. She'd seen rhodoliths in places like
Baja California, Mexico. But in her more than 15 years of diving
Alaska waters, she had never come across them.

"The biggest ones may
have been about the size of a ping-pong ball, but many were smaller.
They have lots of branches that come out of a centerpiece. They
look like toy jacks, except they are pink. It was a very large
bed, at least 60 meters (197 feet) long. It was very exciting."

Konar and Iken collected several
rhodolith specimens and sent them to Rafael Riosmena-Rodriguez,
an internationally recognized marine taxonomist who specializes
in identifying rhodoliths. During the past several months, Riosmena-Rodriguez
conducted a number of tests aimed at identifying the rhodoliths
at his laboratory at the Marine Botany Program at Autonomous
University of Baja California Sur in La Paz, Mexico. Some of
the tests involved slicing the specimens into thin sections and
comparing their structure and reproductive parts to a global
database of known rhodolith species.

"I believe we have at
least two rhodolith species in the samples I received,"
said Riosmena-Rodriguez. "One species is Phymatolithon calcareum.
This species is widely distributed in the North Atlantic Ocean."

While scientists agree that
ocean currents are key to distributing rhodoliths around the
world, debate centers on where P. calcareum originated. Riosmena-Rodriguez
says the species may have actually originated in Alaska waters.
More research on the species' evolutionary history is needed
to be sure.

The other rhodolith specimen
collected by Konar and Iken is potentially a species new to science.

"It does not seem to match
anything we have seen," said Riosmena-Rodriguez.

Riosmena-Rodriguez said the
as-yet unidentified species is similar to a type of rhodolith
found in eastern Canada, called Lithothamnion glaciale. But in
important ways the Alaska rhodolith is different.

"It has very large conceptacles,
the reproductive structures," explained Riosmena-Rodriguez.
"And the thallus is very thin. This is something unique
that you don't find in very many species."

Riosmena-Rodriguez said additional
samples and further testing are needed to confirm whether the
second species is indeed new.

Scientists believe rhodoliths
have been present in the world's oceans since at least the Eocene
epoch, some 55 million years ago. Because rhodoliths probably
grow very slowly in Alaska's cold waters, Riosmena-Rodriguez
said they probably have been in Alaska a very long time, perhaps
long enough to have evolved into an entirely new species.

While they search for funding
to look for and identify additional rhodolith beds, Konar, Iken,
and Riosmena-Rodriguez will submit a scientific paper on their
discovery to a marine journal. And if one of their rhodoliths
turns out to be a new species, they'll have the honor of naming
it.